To think the RNLI are 100% in the right

[SanFranBear]

I've just seen this story on the BBC news homepage where the RNLI are being accused of acting as a taxi service for migrants trying to enter the UK on small boats from Europe.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dejyg4l37o

The organisation and volunteers quite rightly have responded to say they make no apologies for saving lives at sea and that their work has no political motivation.

Damn straight - one of the volunteers further down the article explains the profound impact he feels of encountering people struggling in our waters.

It makes me wonder what critics of the service expect them to do - just sail away, leaving the people to die? Pick them up and cross the channel to dump them back 'where they came from'?

What is wrong with them? Where is their compassion? Regardless of your thoughts on immigration, this is so cold and inhuman....

But you can't just let them drown as a solution can you? What's your actual answer to that question?

Yes indeed so it isn't just men on the boats. What I said was factually correct. The point I was making about families coming later was the fact that many on here seem to think that single men travelling alone makes them some kind of deviants. When it could just be balancing risk and practicalities that they are alone.

Of course this is a major factor. I work with a lot of asylum seekers and many of the young men have been through sexual assault on their journey - can you imagine what that number is like for young women? The journey is horrific for so many, to me it makes complete sense you'd send a young, fit, healthy male ahead to create a safer way for women, children or elders to come via. This notion that they're all here because they're deviant is such fear mongering. The vast majority of young men I've worked with who've entered the country in this way have been very pro- womens rights and anti-crime and have left because of how oppressive extremism in their country of origin was becoming.

It was in response to the poster who claimed that the men on the boats had to leave their country in such a hurry there was no time to pick up documentation, etc. You know, the kind of emergency where you also forget to pick up your wife and kids too. All these men on the boats, just upping and leaving with nothing, while their family sits back at home enduring whatever was so awful the men had to run away immediately.

If you were fleeing persecution or disaster, would you leave your loved ones at home? Or would you all leave together?

The clue is in the motivation. Most of these men are economic migrants, in search of a more lucrative life. The UK has a reputation for being financially generous, which is why they're willing to risk the crossing and not apply for asylum in France.

Oh god, not another person who doesn't understand per capita risk.

I think so and we need to stop the idea that they can bring dependents afterwards

Think of all the reckless teens the RNLI has saved over the years, or the twits who take inflatable pool floats into the sea and get pulled out by currents or the under prepared kayakers or paddle boarders who get themselves into trouble - do we stop rescuing them too, or is that okay because they’re British?

Often they do leave together, get to a refugee camp nearby and then a young, strong man makes the hazardous journey in th elope of establishing a safe way for the others to follow.
Or sometimes it’s the young men who are at most risk of being conscripted into an army they disagree with.
I’m sure if you think just a tiny bit you can think of other possibilities.
Or you could read all the resources that have been provided for you on this thread already.
Edit to add - we aren’t generous. Asylum seekers get very little here. It’s a total misconception that they come because they are given a lot here.

Oh god, not another person who thinks she knows better than everyone about everything.

You very clearly are uninformed in this area. And I would guess you read plenty in the paper but don't actually know many asylum seekers or refugees in real life on a personal level and it shows.

The reason why many young men specifically are needing to leave is because they are often the ones being targeted (often with female or older family members being used as leverage) to join militia or extremist groups. In certain areas young men will be drafted into these groups with the sole purpose of being used as cannon fodder. Mothers and sisters raped if they don't agree to recruitment, fathers shot. Easiest way to resolve is for the young man to flee so the family can deny all knowledge and say he ran away and hope there's no repercussions.

Fear of being killed over sexuality is another, I also had a number of young men who were conceived through rape and had to leave because they were at risk due to who their father was.

It costs a lot to get someone smuggled out. Families often club together to get a relative out with the majority of their savings. Where tf do you think they're getting the money for an entire family group to go? You say you'd leave all together- how? Explain how you would do this?

You are concerned about them losing documentation? Most asylum seekers will have been trafficked into forced labour or sexual exploitation at some point during their journey, Libya is particularly notorious for this. The first thing when someone is trafficked is the removal of all documents so the person can't just up and leave. So again, that adds up. Also some people don't have birth certificates or official documents depending on the community they were born in, for example some young people I've worked with were born into nomadic tribes. Many will have started their journey as children and lost contact with an older relative (either due to dying on the journey or getting separated) on the way who had the documentation or who understood the full reasons as to why they were being smuggled out. Often a meeting point will be agreed incase they get seperated along the way. Red Cross does massive work trying to help people trace family members who've lost touch through conflict at the point of fleeing or been seperated during the journey due to trafficking or entering the water in an unsafe boat. This idea that everyone comes to England is such bullshit. We take in an absolutely tiny proportion of the world asylum seekers. The set up in other European countries is awful, with mass camps which are extremely unsafe with inadequate sanitation, risk of illness let alone risk of violence or sexual violence. Our system is far, far too slow and not fit for purpose but at the very least we house people seeking asylum like the human beings they are. Why is it you think someone selling asylum should not also seek dignity and provision for their children?

This was my exact thinking. Or as long as they're the right colour of migrant it's fine. American? German? Australian? Why is it some migrants are OK to be here but not others - I wonder what the common denominator is. Its so deeply ironic for a country that has a long history of its people taking over other parts of the world.

holds up mirror

Thank you for actually injecting some facts into this discussion. I wish your post could be pinned to the top of every thread about immigration and asylum seekers.

I prefer to listen to people who have direct experience of dealing with asylum seekers rather than rely on the Daily Mail et al.

So what should the RNLI do? Respond to the call, make a judgment call that all those people in the sea put themselves there deliberately, and turn round and go home again? Or maybe you think they should pick out the children and take them, ignoring their screams for their parents and siblings? If you were in their shoes, could you seriously do that?

Misinformation is so hard to dispel.

People tend to believe the first thing they hear and are then resistant to further research or changing their mind. The £350m to the NHS was dispelled within days in the Brexit campaign - but people held on to it until the voting day.

And misinformation spreads like wildfire. Every Fb post and X post atm gets replies about boats / migrants, even when wildly off topic.

Thank you for explaining. Yes, I agree some people are genuine asylum seekers and deserve compassion. But the problem is that an awful lot are economic migrants. Some will admit that's why they're heading for the UK - there's videos of them being interviewed at Calais, but many spin narratives that they know are more likely to get their asylum claim accepted. There's evidence that they are even coached what to say by the people smugglers.

I admire your compassion, but unfortunately it imposes a huge cost on the rest of us. We're already spending over £5 billion on the asylum system, and that is only going to increase as channel crossings increase. We accept over 50% of asylum claims according to the figures I've read, but the costs don't stop there as most will bring in economically dependent family members. One Afghan migrant under the resettlement scheme brought in 22 family members.

And all this is without taking into account the problems of cultural integration and the knock on effects for society. Which is why I asked way back in this thread at what point we are allowed to put our needs above theirs.

There’s a lot wrong with the current system we rely on and enable as shown in your post. It’s unsafe and criminals make vast profits.

But in one specific thing how do you follow up on lost documentation, if it was taken how can what happened be proven?

Nope. I know that I know more about asylum seekers than you because of the lack of knowledge displayed in your posts (despite people giving you all the resources you need to be more informed) and that’s what we are discussing here.

You don't seem to know a damn thing about per capita risk. Plenty of lack of knowledge displayed in your posts too.

Edit to add - we aren’t generous. Asylum seekers get very little here. It’s a total misconception that they come because they are given a lot here.

A misconception shared by Macron, apparently. You'd think he'd be better informed.

In 2024, there were around 16 asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK.

Across the EU27 there were 22 asylum applications for every 10,000 people.

On what we spend per person it’s over double of G7 pp so it is higher.

Backlog and use of hotels since 2022

900 arriving in one day won’t help Labour get accommodation.